Lightweight bigger burner stove?

[FarmerChef]

So a while back I had to upgrade to a 4 quart pot from a 2 quart as our hiking family 5 (soon to be 6) just couldn't eat out of a 2 quart pot. In my quest to speed up water boiling for morning coffee and eats I was given a pocket rocket and after trying it out on a hike with temps in the upper 20s to low 30s in the morning I have to say I was underwhelmed.

The 4 quart pot is very wide whereas the pocket rocket concentrates it's flame in a circle about an inch and a half in diameter in the middle of the pot. I used a windscreen to try and increase the heat retained. Still, my alcohol stove actually outperformed the PR due to the larger flame coverage. Since speed is what I'm looking for it seems to me, logically, that I need a bigger contact area for the heat of the stove but a quick tour of REI doesn't seem to reveal any larger burners in this category. I'm sure that has something to do with a lack of market.

Has anyone seen a lightweight alternative to the super small gas stoves that still uses canisters?

[Tuckahoe]

Forgive me as I may not be the one to answer your question, but I wonder if a whitegas stove like a whisperlite might be what you need. http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves...erlite/product

I dont need to boil so much water myself, but two of my hiking buddies are a father and son team and they share their cooking on a whisperlite.

[Wise Old Owl]

I think you forgot to keep the cylinder at night in the bottom of your sleeping bag.

You can fire that up in the kitchen without the wind screen and a measured amount of water...grab a timer.


Or see this http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...=1#post1432263

[FarmerChef]

I think you forgot to keep the cylinder at night in the bottom of your sleeping bag.

You can fire that up in the kitchen without the wind screen and a measured amount of water...grab a timer.


Or see this http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...=1#post1432263

Getting good flow and burn wasn't the problem. There was plenty of heat but it was concentrated in a very small area of the pot. One of the things I like is that the pot, being bigger, allows more water to come in contact with the flame. That is, if the flame is heating most of the pan bottom. In the case of the PR it was only heating a small area. Or perhaps I'm missing something?

[FarmerChef]

Replied too fast. I did bring a wood stove with me but with everything under snow finding dry wood was more challenge than it was worth. I'm confident the wood stove will be the keeper once I get a chance on dryish conditions.

[Wise Old Owl]

Well FC I appreciate what you are posting... Retry the stove in the kitchen anyway.. whats the harm? How long have you owned it.. and my thought is that a wide pot transfers heat faster provided its at the optimum distance from the burner.

[Wise Old Owl]

Forgive me as I may not be the one to answer your question, but I wonder if a whitegas stove like a whisperlite might be what you need. http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves...erlite/product

I dont need to boil so much water myself, but two of my hiking buddies are a father and son team and they share their cooking on a whisperlite.

I love that stove and donated it due to weight to the Boy Scouts, they needed it more than me.

[FarmerChef]

Well FC I appreciate what you are posting... Retry the stove in the kitchen anyway.. whats the harm? How long have you owned it.. and my thought is that a wide pot transfers heat faster provided its at the optimum distance from the burner.

Happy to! It was my impression that the stove was supposed to sit on the pot support on the stove itself? I hadn't though of raising the pot higher off the stove with a separate pot stand. Is this commonly done? That might spread the flames out a bit better.

[bigcranky]

As soon as our group gets to three+ people, I take two stoves and two or three pots/mugs/whatever. It's just much easier to cook for a family group with multiple stoves, so you can make hot drinks on one while cooking dinner on the other.

The MSR Wind Pro has a larger burner, but it's hardly UL, and not cheap.

Gossamer Gear just sent me an ad for this stove, which claims to be good for cooking. Never seen it, though.

[Wise Old Owl]

The pot support provides air to mix with the gas... the gas and air together is the heat... you are burning air... hense my issue with side burning cat alcohol burners, to me inefficient - that's soul, I test and test.. not as much as Zelph..

[Feral Bill]

For a group of six, you're going to need a bigger stove, or, as Big Cranky said, two stoves. Even a two or three pound stove is reasonable for six, assuming a few of them are adult load carriers. Something like this: http://www.coleman.com/product/3000000792#.UV-LKJOsh8E is worth considering.

[jrwiesz]

Has anyone seen a lightweight alternative to the super small gas stoves that still uses canisters?

Fire up two or three of these.

http://www.rei.com/product/734584/je...er-cooking-pot

With 6 hikers, three should be carrying stoves.

[Rocket Jones]

Just a thought, would two SuperCat alcohol stoves sitting side-by-side work better than a single canister stove? Add a rock or two for extra outboard support if needed.

[DandT40]

I use this one for our large 5L pot and frying pan - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has the arms that extend out and I built a wind shield out of a pie tin that fits perfectly around our pot and into our cookset when packed up. It folds up nice and supports the larger pots and pans well.

[DandT40]

*edit - should be 3L not 5L there... My bad...

[MuddyWaters]

There are reasons to use alcohol, Quiet for one.

But the weight advantage of alcohol is really for solo use, and dissapears at about 5 days for most. For me, with my UL setup and low use, it might be 8-9 days.

There is no case to be made for alcohol use for 5 or 6 on a weight basis. The cannister would be more weight efficient by the second day.

Any pot bigger than 2 qts isnt really intended for small cannister supported backpacking stoves. They are intended for 1-2 people, and small pots
They dont support larger pots as good, and extended use of large boils can lower temp/pressure in the cannister to the point of non-functioning

You can go with more stable larger stove, and liquid cannister feed or white gas like Whisperlite Universal .

Or, use jetboil and just repeatedly boil if FBC, but have to watch cannisters dont cool off too much

If the temps were in upper 20s/low 30s as you say, your cannister wouldnt work worth a hoot anyway unless you slept with the cannister inside your sleeping bag to keep it warm. A big pot , long boil time, could cool it off rapidly in cold weather to point of not functioning. That may have been most of your problem. It should have really sounded like a roaring rocket if gas flow was adequate.

[FarmerChef]

I use this one for our large 5L pot and frying pan - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has the arms that extend out and I built a wind shield out of a pie tin that fits perfectly around our pot and into our cookset when packed up. It folds up nice and supports the larger pots and pans well.

wow - now we're talking. That cheap price really worries me. At <$8.00 it makes me wonder a bit about the quality. What's your experience been?

[FarmerChef]

Fire up two or three of these.

http://www.rei.com/product/734584/je...er-cooking-pot

With 6 hikers, three should be carrying stoves.

As they get older, most definitely. We do typically carry 2 stoves with us (one alcohol and one wood burner or one canister) for redundancy and I have burned two at once to boil/simmer different foods/water - I just don't do that regularly. I'll have to give that some more thought as if I did that I would probably bring two alcohol stoves or the alcohol plus canister. Then I'd have to reevaluate my fuel...

[FarmerChef]

There are reasons to use alcohol, Quiet for one.

But the weight advantage of alcohol is really for solo use, and dissapears at about 5 days for most. For me, with my UL setup and low use, it might be 8-9 days.

There is no case to be made for alcohol use for 5 or 6 on a weight basis. The cannister would be more weight efficient by the second day.

Any pot bigger than 2 qts isnt really intended for small cannister supported backpacking stoves. They are intended for 1-2 people, and small pots
They dont support larger pots as good, and extended use of large boils can lower temp/pressure in the cannister to the point of non-functioning

You can go with more stable larger stove, and liquid cannister feed or white gas like Whisperlite Universal .

Or, use jetboil and just repeatedly boil if FBC, but have to watch cannisters dont cool off too much

If the temps were in upper 20s/low 30s as you say, your cannister wouldnt work worth a hoot anyway unless you slept with the cannister inside your sleeping bag to keep it warm. A big pot , long boil time, could cool it off rapidly in cold weather to point of not functioning. That may have been most of your problem. It should have really sounded like a roaring rocket if gas flow was adequate.

Thanks Muddy. I was wondering about the alocohol/cannister tradeoff for carried weight as a function of time and group size. I still haven't quite wrapped my head around that but there seems to be agreement so I'll just trust what I'm reading. And I hadn't figured the cannister temp into stove performance. Something I'll have to keep in mind in the future.

As to the PR performance on this trip, it was definitely a roaring jet. It's just that I could quickly tell that it would have had adequate coverage on my 2 quart pot but on the 4 quart pot it was only really heating the center. This was consistent throughout my use. One night while cooking risotto (it was Easter so a big treat not something I would normally do) I had to stir constantly because the bottom of the pot was hot enough to simmer rapidly in the middle but not any further than that. It still worked but a bigger flame spread would have been advantageous.

My go to at this point still seems to be the campfire as I can make a small twig fire a la Ray Jardine and get a boil in no time with free, weightless (from my pack's perspective) fuel. But in the kind of weather we had on this last trip, dry fuel was hard to come by and I was hoping I could do a bit better with the stove(s).

[Lyle]

White gas with a roarer burner are still the blow torches of stoves - best and most efficient for groups (your family qualifies). SVEA, MSR GK, XGK, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjWYu2nFOCE